The concept of systems of denial was introduced in a paper by Andrew Hill and Stephen Gerras about strategic resistance to military innovation. They explored how successful organizations focus organizational energy and attention on refining their dominant theories of competition, often resulting in dysfunctional organizational responses, or systems of denial, to strategic anomalies - inconvenient information - that contradict assumptions. The behavior patterns of these systems apply not only to successful armies, but also to e.g. IT-departments, businesses and the public sector. It may be obvious that smarter ways of creating and executing policies will be prime targets for systems of denial. Organizations that want to innovate by implementing systems based on contextual intelligence, cognitive computing, robotic process automation (RPA) and similar smart systems for various types of knowledge workers, must be extremely alert to spot resistance symptoms.

1. Systems of denial in policy making
Systems of denial are omnipresent in business and public organizations. They are a main cause
for blocking innovation and transformation. Systems of denial occur when organizations are
confronted with information that challenges their core (competitive) assumptions.
The system actors are thumbing their nose to someone/something and paint their own version of
the truth. Unethical behavior is not uncommon in such situations.
Museum van Lien, Fijnaart, 2015
Resistance to innovation
The concept of systems of denial was introduced in a paper by Andrew Hill and Stephen Gerras
about strategic resistance to military innovation (source).
They explored how successful organizations focus organizational energy and attention on
refining their dominant theories of competition, often resulting in dysfunctional organizational
responses, or systems of denial, to strategic anomalies - inconvenient information - that contradict
assumptions. Theories that were once the basis for dominance become barriers to innovation and
frustrate adaptation.
According to the authors, decision makers become structurally blind to significant changes in the
environment. Such organizations tend to have the following behavior:
 Question the intentions, authority, or legitimacy of the source (colloquially, “killing the
messenger”)

2.  Question the validity, generalizability, or applicability of the information (“that doesn’t apply to
us”)
 Revise the theory to make it less testable (and more resistant to refutation)
The authors admit that these responses are not in themselves bad. Each is a fundamental part of
legitimate inquiry. But they can be misapplied, as often happens in the defense of established
theories and concepts against an onslaught of information that undermines them.
The readers that have worked in the information and consultancy industry will probably
recognize these behavior patterns. They apply not only to successful armies, but also to e.g. IT-
departments, businesses and the public sector. The responses can manifest themselves separately
of in a combined fashion. Examples of systems of denial are everywhere. It is quite easy to come
up with examples. Some of them are quite recent.
Example: How to cleanse dirty diesel cars
This week, I watched a perfect example of a system of denial on the German Television. The
program (Frontal21, 24-05-2016) documented how a German politician created separate
categories of emission test tolerances for diesel cars, in order to minimize the number of cars that
were affected by the diesel scandal.
Initial classification by emission limit in dirty (schmutzig) and clean (sauber) diesel cars
(Source)
The new categories were at random invented by the minister of transport by creatively interpreting an
EU-regulation that is even not been implemented yet. The result was that, instead of only 3 of 53
cars adhering to the emission norm, suddenly 21 cars were categorized as being not noticeable harmful
for the environment.
Incidentally, the BMW cars that benefited from this reclassification are manufactured in the home
country of this national minister of transport.

3. Example: How to deny the effect of water scarcity
The scarcity of blue water is becoming a worldwide problem, especially for food production. If severe
water shortages occur, the main impact is usually upon agricultural systems and farmers, since they need
the most water. See for instance the report mentioned by the Washington post (here).
Number of months in which blue water scarcity is above 100% (Mekonnen & Hoekstra, 2016)
(Source)
Last month I heard in a program on a South African radio station (Radio Sonder Grense) how a politician
accused his opponent of not knowing the facts in a dispute about the water shortage for farmers in
South Africa. However, this opponent named facts and figures related to the specific local situation.
The politician ignored his objectives as being not relevant and almost obsessive. He put his focus on
another not quantifiable aspect and maintained this position until the end of the session. However, a
look at the figure above could have given him good course to think about a long term approach to the
water footprint in South Africa to feed his electorate.
Example: How to avoid transparent policy making
Good governance and transparency are advocated by policy makers and constituents as being
mandatory in a modern democratic system. No wonder that the IT-director of a European public
organization was looking for ways to support the policy making lifecycle. His IT-department had tried to
create solutions over several years without great success. Therefore, he asked an external company to
create a proof of concept.
The company managed to do that within ten days. As the company presented its live proof of concept,
the IT-Director - literally - almost fell of his chair. He declared that the demo offered more substantial
functionally for his parliamentary clients than his own IT-department could have created in a whole year.
He also acknowledged that the presented approach was astonishingly 'fit for purpose' to serve the
specific characteristics of policy making and policy life cycle management, including the mix of formal
and informal activities.

4. Options of a policy maker workplace
(Source)
The IT department reacted totally different on a demonstration of this policy maker workplace. They
suggested that the external company tried to erode their efforts in database management and running
projects. They also claimed that their parliamentary system was too volatile and ruled by too many
exceptions to be supported in such a way.
As the external company replied that therefore their system was designed for change and built in such a
way that the exception was the rule, the group was silenced. However, they were not convinced that
their existing efforts needed a re-assessment. Nevertheless, their director decided to consult some policy
makers.
Faced with the option of a smart support of the policy process, including regulatory impact assessment
options, the consulted politicians turned out to be not interested. It became clear that they didn't really
care about transparency, governance and policy outcome (which is probably not surprising to some of
us). When innovation made these objectives feasible, they tended to shy away.
How to deal with systems of denial
Systems of denial are simply hard to circumvent; especially when leading actors are part of the system
themselves. Andrew Hill and Stephen Gerras describe several ways of dealing with systems of denial.
However, they state rightfully that none of the approaches work without what they call 'educated
officers'.
According to the authors: 'Underlying all recommendations is an inescapable reality: we need intelligent,
open-minded leaders - men and women - who understand the fundamental principles of logic and
evidence, are nimble enough to recognize the significance of strategic anomalies, and have the mental
tools to think of what to do next.'
Such leaders will overcome systems of denial by focusing on 'the counterfactual work of organizational
change - understanding what is not happening and which possibilities are not being discovered, explored,
developed, evaluated, or implemented - and why it is not happening. This requires understanding how
inconvenient facts are resisted and developing a strategy for overcoming that resistance.'

5. Questioning and understanding Why (Musée des Arts Contemporains, Grand-Hornu, 2011)
There is no magic formula to deal with resistance, incapability to change and lack of agility. If the
leadership itself acts as a system of denial, no innovation will be possible until a crisis arises, the leader is
replaced, or both. A recent example of a strategic transformational shift after a leadership change
is Saudi Arabia, that intends to diversify its economy and reduce its dependency on oil exports (source).
Intelligent policy automation
It may be obvious that smarter ways of creating and executing policies will be prime targets for systems
of denial (as already indicated by the before mentioned third example). Organizations that want to
innovate by implementing systems based on contextual intelligence, cognitive computing, robotic
process automation (RPA) and similar smart systems for various types of knowledge workers, must be
extremely alert to spot resistance symptoms. They need to have an answer to the manifestations of
resistance without compromising their 'future perfect'. Goal orientation and perseverance are as
important as showing empathy, having expanded conversations with the innovation blockers and making
benefits visible to the various stakeholders.
Ethics and politics
Incidentally, in the case of unethical behavior in politics, this will probably last forever. Especially if it
remains unpunished due to social amnesia and apathy. Ultimately, it will widen the trust gap between
politicians and their electorate and shape room for populists.
They will use arguments for untrustworthiness, in combination with the fear for the unknown, to
mobilize voters for their agenda. The symptoms of this response are as widespread as these of systems
of denial.

6. Mu.ZEE Oostende, 2012
Thei Geurts, May 26, 2016